Approximately $20 million in grants were awarded over the last three years by the Ohio Incumbent Worker Training Voucher Program, funded by contributions from the Ohio casinos. The first three rounds of grants targeted critical industries – manufacturing being one of them. A fourth round became available for application building starting September 28th, with a submission start date of 10:00 am ET on October 14th. At that time, those employers submitting the grant application would have the best chance for approval. According to the OH IWT Guidelines, in addition to the quality of the proposed training activities, “funding approvals for this program will be on a first-come, first-served basis.” With over 600 employers being approved each round, anyone submitting an application on October 14th had a better chance of being at the front of the line to have serious consideration before all funds are obligated.

ATTENTION LATECOMERS: There is an opportunity for those employers who were not able to conceive a project and prepare an application for grant funding. According to the OH IWT Guidelines,

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“Once the training funds are completely committed, the Ohio Development Services Agency will hold subsequent applications in a “queue,” in the event that additional program funds become available.”

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This is, by far, the easiest grant money to use and the paperwork, once set up, is relatively easy to comply. Proactive Technologies, Inc. has assisted client-companies to successfully apply for, manage, document and receive reimbursement for almost $2,000,000 in projects in just the last 2 years alone! A substantial amount of that amount was reimbursed to the clients by the state of Ohio to lessen their initial out-of-pocket investment on a project that can lead to maximized results! Click here for more information.
This is a reimbursement program. Once the employer applies and is accepted, the employer completes the approved training and submits the receipts and rosters to the OH IWT. The employer will be reimbursed for 50% of the cost. If the proposed training isn’t held and no cost incurred, the employer simply has nothing to submit. For Round 4 information, visit the OH state’s website click here.

In the September issue of Proactive Technologies Report, I discussed what seemed to be the obvious differences in European and U.S. apprenticeship models in the article “Apprenticeships That Make Money? (part 1 of 1)“. I suggested that visionary U.S. business leaders consider creating a revenue-generating “apprenticeship center” within the organization to cover the costs of the apprenticeship and, in some cases, make money. How could that be accomplished? In continuing the discussion I would like to offer a possible strategy.

Unfortunately, selling the need for an investment in a training infrastructure can be a harder sell to management who might be reluctant to make the case for fear of being perceived as being too “spend-happy” rather than seen as appropriately proactive. However, if no consideration is given to such planning that fact will subsequently reveal itself later in the form of transition costs – lost capacity and decreased operational productivity.

This is a reimbursement program. Once the employer applies and is accepted, the employer completes the approved training and submits the receipts and rosters to the OH IWT office. The employer will then be reimbursed for 50% of the cost. If the proposed training isn’t held and no cost is incurred the employer simply has nothing to submit and no further obligation. Visit the state’s IWT website here.

This is, by far, the easiest grant money to use and the paperwork, once set up, is relatively easy to complete. Proactive Technologies, Inc. has assisted client-companies to successfully apply for, manage, document and receive reimbursement for almost $2,000,000 in projects in just the last two years alone, a substantial amount of which was reimbursed to the clients by the state to lessen their initial out-of-pocket investment on a project that can lead to substantial results! For more information on how Proactive Technologies can help your organization take advantage of this great opportunity, click here.

According to a recent report by Career Builder.com, more than half of the employers surveyed could not find qualified candidates: 71% – Information-Technology specialists, 70% – Engineers, 66% – Managers, 56% – Healthcare and other specialists, 52% – Financial Operations personnel. According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, nearly half of small and mid-size employers said they can find few or no “qualified applicants” for recent openings. And anecdotal evidence from manufacturing firms echoes the same challenge with specialty manufacturing jobs such as maintenance, NC machining and technical support positions. This, in large part, can be attributed to the upheaval caused by the Great Crash of 2008 and the following disruption of several million careers. Sidelined workers saw the erosion of their skill bases while waiting years for an economic recovery that, for many, has not reached them yet.

However, many or most of these workers can be “reskilled” or “upskilled” for the current workforce. The solution lies not in waiting for the labor market to magically produce the needed qualified candidates, but rather in each company investing a little to build their own internal system of structured on-the job training. With such an infrastructure, any candidate with strong core skills can be trained quickly and accurately to any employer’s specifications. Furthermore, a strong training infrastructure has factored into it methods of acceptable basic core skill remediation when the benefit outweighs the cost. Read More

Each of the quality programs typically modeled by manufacturers and service organizations is rooted in the American National Standards Institute (“ANSI”) program for quality assurance and control that served us up to the 1980’s. What each of the subsequent models tries to achieve is simplicity, standardization and verifiability. Audits are used to ensure these attributes are present.